To compare noise levels under real-life conditions, I shot this scene with the Canon EOS T5 / 1200D, the Nikon D3300, and the Sony A3000, within a few moments of each other using their best quality JPEG settings at each of their ISO sensitivity settings.

All three cameras were fitted with their respective 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit zooms and were adjusted to provide the same vertical angle of view.

For this test all three cameras were mounted on a tripod and image stabilisation was turned off. Noise Reduction was set to the default options on each camera, although I disabled any automatic contrast-enhancing modes as these can artificially introduce noise. As such, Auto Lighting Optimizer on the Canon, Active D-Lighting on the Nikon and Auto DRO on the Sony were disabled.

The image above was taken with the Canon EOS T5 / 1200D. The T5 / 1200D was set to f5.6 in Aperture Priority mode and at its base 100 ISO sensitivity metered a shutter speed of 0.4s. Both the Nikon D3300 and Sony A3000 were also set to 100 ISO and f5.6 and both metered the same 0.4s shutter speed.

Just to a recap that the sensors in the Canon EOS T5 / 1200D, Nikon D3300 and Sony A3000 have resolutions of 18, 24 and 20 Megapixels respectively, so the crop areas and size of detail varies accordingly. As you'd expect, all three models produce very good results at the lower end of the sensitivity range. It's difficult to see much of a difference between them, but the Nikon D3300 100 ISO crop looks a little bit cleaner than the other two to me.

There's a clear difference between the 100 ISO and 200 ISO crops, with the noise ramped up by an equivalent amount on all three, so the D3300 crop is still looking a little better than the other two here. It's the same story up to the 800 ISO mark, but the small advantage the Nikon D3300 enjoys is fairly marginal - you be unlikely to see a difference unless pixel peeping. And by 1600 ISO the margin looks like it may have diminished to zero, at this setting all three look more or less the same.

Even in the upper end of the sensitivity range, it's difficult to spot much of a difference in the noise levels. The T5 / 1200D's saturation is dropping off and there's more colour noise in the T5 / 1200D 12800 ISO crop than in the D3300. And the 12800 ISO crop from the Sony A3000 is looking very fuzzy compared with the other two. Where the T5 / 1200D tops out at 12800 ISO, the D3300 offers an additional 25600 position though the noise is overwhelming. The same could be said of the A3000's 16000 ISO upper limit. All the same, these are worth having for emergency low light shooting where a very noisy shot might be better than an underexposed one.

But what happens when you bypass their default in-camera styles and process their RAW data with the same settings? Find out in my Canon T5 / 1200D RAW noise comparison, or head straight over to my Canon T5 / 1200D sample images to see some more real-life shots in a variety of conditions.

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